Pinterest

As a human, I am obsessed with Pinterest – as an entrepreneur I know it is a fabulous tool for getting my content in front of people. If I had products it would be even better.

I have been active on Pinterest since the days where you needed to be invited to the platform, so yes a while now. When explaining it to people the best way I’ve found to describe it is a digital pin board, all for you to pin things from around the internet (the way as a teen I used to crop things from magazines). You save images you find either on Pinterest or anywhere on the internet to boards, and boards are simple collections of content.

As it’s a visually based platform it’s great for planning a holiday/wedding/decorating but as people learned of the power of the platform you can also find really fabulous links to useful content about pretty much everything.

The fact people use the platform to plan major projects is why it’s so great for selling products. I know of people who go straight to Pinterest when looking to redecorate a room and search for their desired item. Currently, we’ve got a few blank walls in our apartment that I am looking for artwork for. Head over to Pinterest and search (like you would in Google) and look at all of the options you get. Most of the images will lead me right back to the supplier so I can either order online or if possible head to their store front. Too easy for the shopper and awesome for the retailer!

It’s important because of how visual the platform is that you use great photos. For example, I have a reading list board full of books I’ve seen online and want to read later. When I am thinking of what to read next I’ll head to the page and have a look. There are now 683 pins on the board so I don’t really look at all of the book covers I posted, I look for ones that leap out at me (which is probably less than you’d think).

One last tip for you is that people are pretty lazy when they pin things, often not remembering to change the information about the image. So when you upload images to your websites/online stores/etc if you can be sure to add a description to your image. WordPress lets you do this really simply when you upload a media file and it’s worth doing. You can pop things like all of your keywords in your description so that when the image does end up on Pinterest people will find it during their searches.

Cool hack:

Secret boards – you can create boards that only you and a few others can see. This is awesome for brainstorming with clients. For example, I was working on a document template and wanted to get the clients thoughts on my ideas to be sure we were on the same page before I started work. I could share my ideas and leave them notes on what I was inspired by and then we just chatted about it to come up with a plan. Brilliant when you work remotely from each other.

To follow:

I would highly recommend following people who sell similar products to yours or products in the same family (e.g. if you sell bed linen then you should follow Adairs) to keep up with what others in the space are about.

Want to learn more about Pinterest then I recommend Melyssa Griffin and Confetti Social who run courses on getting the most out of Pinterest so they knows their stuff.

I write the words, or the majority of the words, here at alysholz.com - the words are my own opinions/knowledge but I hope that they provide you with some motivation/inspiration for the work you are doing in the world.

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I'm Alys

Your virtual marketing director - for when you know your business needs one but only for a few hours a month. I've got your back from strategy to execution!